Self-retracting lanyards have numerous industrial end uses including but not limited to those for: construction, manufacturing, hazardous materials/remediation, asbestos abatement, spray painting, sand blasting, welding, mining, numerous oil & gas industry applications, electric and utility, nuclear energy, paper and pulp, sanding, grinding, stage rigging, roofing, scaffolding, telecommunications, automotive repair and assembly, warehousing and railroading to name a few. Some tend to be more end use specific than others, like the building/construction system of Franke U.S. Pat. No. 6,695,095; or the roof anchoring system of Ostrobod U.S. Pat. No. 5,730,407.
There are numerous self-retracting lanyards, or lifelines, in the field of fall protection safety equipment. They can and should be worn by an individual when there is any risk of falling. Such self-retracting lanyards generally consist of a housing that includes a rotatable drum or hub around which a lifeline, typically made of webbing, cable or even rope, is wound. The drum rotates in a first direction to unwind (or “pay out”) the line from its housing when a certain level of tension is purposefully applied. When that degree of tension is reduced or released, the drum/hub can slowly rotate in a reverse direction causing the line to retract or rewind about itself in a desired manner. Such housings further include a braking mechanism or assembly for stopping drum/hub rotation when the line unwinds too rapidly, i.e., faster than its predetermined maximum velocity for normal pay out. Such sudden line pay outs are an indication that the lanyard wearer/user has experienced a fall that needs to be stopped or arrested.
Should an unintentional, accidental fall commence, the braking mechanism in the housing of the SRL engages. It is meant to stop the SRL wearer from falling too far. After the initial fall has been arrested, the present invention prevents subsequent (typically incremental) line pay outs caused, in part, by the elastic nature of the line itself—in essence, an unintentional, bungee-jumping “rebound” that can place an undue strain on many current lanyard braking mechanisms while possibly jeopardizing the safety/recovery of the SRL wearer as well.
SRL's typically connect at one end to an anchorage point, often on the support structure at or near where a user is performing certain assigned tasks. The line from the SRL housing is clamped (or otherwise attached) to a harness worn by the worker. One representative harness is shown and described in Reynolds et al U.S. Pat. No. 6,804,830, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein.
Known models of SRL's include those disclosed in Schreiber et al U.S. Pat. No. 6,810,99; Wolner et al U.S. Pat. No. 5,186,289, Wolner U.S. Pat. No. 4,877,110 and Wolner et al U.S. application Ser. No. 10/914,631, which published on Mar. 10, 2005 as US20050051659. None of these devices, however, address the issue of line rebounding inhibition to the same degree as the present invention.
It would be desirable, therefore, to develop a self-retracting lanyard with a braking mechanism having a lockout element which prevents the pawl from being released during rebounding.